My Escape
by Jewel1001
Summary: A stolen heart can't be given back, and Syrus needs to get away from the pain he feels every day. He will never have Jaden's love. There is no escape. Or is there? Syrus' POV. Warning: Self harm, Suicide and Character Death.


Hazeru - I've never written a story like this before. It was ... an experience.

Hera - This story contains one-sided Anikishipping and Spiritshipping.

Hazeru - It also contains strong self harming and suicide.

Hera - If any of this offends you, _do not read this_! You have been warned!

Hazeru - Enjoy the story!

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! GX

My Escape

I am going to kill myself.

Why, you might ask? Because there is nothing left for me here. There is nothing left for me anywhere.

Which is why I intend to leave it all behind. Every last bit of what is me. I'm going to get rid of it. I'll never have to face my own tortured soul again.

Every memory, every touch, every damn painful moment of _him _in my mind - I'm going to eradicate it.

Sometimes I hate him.

Then I remember that I love him.

And then I hate myself.

Sometimes I hate myself so much that I punch the mirror I'm looking at, hoping that it will break so that my reflection will shatter into a million tiny pieces - so I can pretend that I have been physically broken. The same way I am emotionally.

That is not the only way that I try to hurt my image so that I can pretend. There are other ways, none of which are very pleasant - and yet are my escape.

I am not crazy. I am organised and simply in touch with my inner self. I know my own heart.

My escape comes in three ways. I call these my Methods.

/

Method One is simple and easy. I just fill the bath up with ice cold water, strip down and hop in. I immerse myself in water that is almost freezing - I often add a few bags of ice to intensify the experience. My body, in this Method, goes numb, and when I get out, the circulation and normal temperature, it hurts like a bitch. But I can't do this often, because I know it is bad for me. And I don't want to kill myself.

Well, I do now. But when I started, I _didn't_.

Method Two is a bit less drastic. I take my ordinary, everyday nail-clippers, and I cut my fingernails. Except I don't cut them properly. I cut them savagely - right back to the quick, until my fingertips are bleeding and it hurts to touch anything with the raw flesh, usually covered by a nail.

Method Three is the my personal favourite because it works so well. I just sit down in the bathroom, on the closed toilet seat, and I take my favourite razor blade - one that I think I got from my brother, I'm not sure exactly. But I slide that comforting blade across my arm, my thigh, anywhere that is covered, anywhere that I am sure I will not hit a major artery and cause myself to bleed out. Because that is too fast.

When I cut myself, there is physical pain, and a lot of it. And that pain is what I crave. I drink in every last blissful second that I experience. The emotional pain that haunts me all day every day, it is gone. It is still there, of course, waiting like a criminal to creep up on me later. But when that shiny blade cuts my already scarred flesh and I see that red - beautiful, beautiful blood - I am content.

I love that pain. That physical, proper pain. Because I know _why _it hurts.

I have just cut through my flesh and my nerves send signals to my brain to let me know that I am experiencing pain. It is sensible pain - and by that, I just mean that we all know why it hurts.

When there is physical pain, there is no emotional pain. When there is physical pain, I have a reason to tell myself that I am hurt.

Method Three is my favourite. I rarely use the other two Methods.

The first one is too dangerous, the second one too obvious - people tend to notice when you can't even draw a card properly because your fingers hurt too much.

But with Method Three, that sweet blade and that shimmering blood, nobody will ever know. I can pull on my clothes and pretend that it didn't happen, and nobody will ever be able to tell any different.

/

I am not crazy.

I cause myself pain on purpose. Self harm, they call it sometimes. But they don't understand why I do it.

I like the pain. It isn't an enemy, it's a friend - a relief. That might sound crazy, to say that I love the pain almost as much as I love _him_.

Yes, I hurt myself physically.

But there is _reason _behind that.

I don't hurt myself because I like pain as a general rule. I do it because I like the pain that makes sense.

Pain of the heart when my heart is, physically, completely healthy? There is no sense in that, and yet I hurt all the time.

Is it really wrong to want to escape from pain that you don't understand? Is it so wrong to cut your arms or legs to have a few blissful moments when you feel pain and understand fully why it hurts.

Judge me however you want. If you knew my emotional pain, you'd understand why I crave the physical.

/

I am in love. I am so deeply in love that my heart can't help but beat twice as fast the minute he enters the room. I am so in love with him that I throw myself willing at him, knowing I am setting myself up for rejection but unable to help myself.

He doesn't love me back.

Why can't I stop loving him?

This is no storybook romance. I don't say 'I'm so in love that he can forever keep my heart'. Just so you know, it doesn't work like that.

I want my damn heart back! He stole it. And I want it back.

But he's already combined it with his own. Made it so that I will never be able to take it back without obtaining his love.

And that can not happen.

Because he loves another.

He loves a student much like himself, one that has green eyes and blue hair and a strange sense of fashion, and a Southern accent. That boy's name is Jesse Andersen, and he is the person who is kind to everyone, who has no enemies in the student body at the school.

Jesse is the one who has the heart of the boy I love.

That boy's name is known at Duel Academy. He is infamous. He is my love.

He is Jaden Yuki.

/

I have loved Jaden for years. Since our first year, I have wanted to do all sorts of things with him that we couldn't possibly do as friends.

There were the hugs and high-fives, the arms slung around each other's shoulders as a gesture of friendship.

That is what I want. His touch.

Only I don't want him to touch me in such an innocent, friendly gesture. I want him to touch me the way I just know he touches Jesse.

I want Jaden to hold me in his arms. I want to feel his hands slide under my shirt, down into my jeans. I want to feel his lips move with mine, his tongue in my mouth. I want to run my hands through his hair while he does the same to mine. I want to do the most intimate things with him.

I want all this so badly that it hurts.

It hurts my heart.

It hurts even more when I know that he does all this with Jesse, but would never even consider doing any of it with me.

/

I stand in front of the full length mirror in the bathroom. I am an Obelisk Blue student; I have my own bathroom, my own mirror.

It lets me see myself. This time, I don't smash it, like I did to the one in the bedroom.

Instead I look at myself.

I am small in size. I don't have an impressive body anywhere. My arms and legs are twigs and my chest isn't toned. I am skinny and sometimes I wonder if my cheeks still have childish dimples - I never dare look closely enough to find out.

But there is nothing _wrong _with my body. For my size, I am perfectly formed everywhere. I don't count the cuts on my arms and legs, the odd one on my chest, since I inflicted those on myself.

There is nothing about this body that should repulse anyone. I wonder why it isn't good enough for Jaden.

I don't have the skin tone Jesse does. His hair isn't as pale as mine, and his eyes are a vibrant green. My grey eyes can't compare to those emeralds. He has muscles in his arms, I have none. He has a Southern accent, which I couldn't even fake if I tried.

Jesse is the type of guy that Jaden likes.

Why couldn't he have wanted to a guy like me? We'd have been perfect?

But he doesn't.

I'm going to have to accept it.

Or, alternatively, go with the plan that is running through my head this very moment.

_You don't have to suffer. You can end all the pain._

Those are my thoughts.

My heart is telling me this.

I am listening.

/

I fill the bathtub up with warm water and smile at it as it fills the room with steam. I watch my reflection in the mirror, slowly becoming obscured as steam overpowers it. When I can see nothing but a vague peach and blue blur, I turn away.

I am tempted to smash that mirror but I don't. That would be a crazy person's gesture.

And I am not crazy. I am hurt.

I am sensible. I will end this pain.

A patient with cancer doesn't suffer the pain when they could have treatment to take it away. They take the treatment, take the risk of the operation and suchlike, and hope that it makes them better.

It is the same for me.

I am in pain, and all that pain is focused on my heart. My treatment is the blissful end - where my heart will stop beating forever. Once my heart has stopped beating, it can no longer be in pain.

/

I stare at the filled bathtub as I turn off the taps. It is deep water and very warm. Perfect.

Sometimes I take off my glasses when I bathe, but now I keep them on, even though I have to wipe them with a cloth before I step into the water - they are steamy.

I want to be able to see clearly. I want to see those scarlet beads of blood and know that they are the sweet escape I am looking for.

I place my precious blade on the edge of the tub and step into the water. It burns me, and I gasp a little, lifting my leg out of the water a few inches. My pale skin is salmon pink with the burning water.

I like this. This is pain before I have even cut. This is delicious.

In one go I slide into the colourless heaven, submerging myself up to my shoulders in water and feeling it burn.

There is pain. Understandable pain. I am being exposed to a higher temperature and that causes me pain. I know why it hurts.

Yes, this is my idea of heaven.

But it's not enough. Not good enough. The pain is dying down slowly as my body adjusts to the water - the beads of sweat on my forehead are telling me that it is hot, but my body is beginning to adjust, and that means no pain.

Well, this won't do.

/

The blade is delicate, like the fine bones of a bird. And yet it is strong and powerful.

It is my best friend.

I grip the razor blade tightly in between two fingers - I have mastered holding it just right - and lift my leg up to lean against the side of the tub.

My thigh has cuts all along it. Not red gashes, not any more. They're little white scars, marks of shame embedded on my skin forever.

What would people think of me if they saw this?

What will Jaden think when it becomes know that I killed myself? That I was a cutter?

I hope that he will feel some emotional pain, just so mine can be reciprocated. But his won't last. I wouldn't do this if it would mentally scar my love. But I know that he will find comfort in Jesse's arms.

I picture Jaden crying and Jesse taking him into his arms. I picture Jesse lying my love down on a bed in the Slifer dorms, kissing him. I picture them forgetting about me by filling their bodies and minds with a pleasure that Jaden has only ever experienced with Jesse - a pleasure I wanted to give to him.

I didn't ever tell him, because as soon as I was ready to, he fell for Jesse. I couldn't tell him outright that I loved him. I made heavy hints, practically throwing myself at him, but he always rejected me, without even knowing it.

I picture the way he and Jesse kiss in public, lips pressed together and the sounds of their love filling the room.

I picture this and I feel angry. I picture this and feel hurt.

I picture this and drive that blade into my thigh.

There is blood, of course. That blood that I love so much, it is there, seeping slowly. I make a small cut, not deep, about two inches long. I then lower my leg back into the water, because it will sting, and cause me more pain.

Those images are fading now, replaced by the rush of the pain. The adrenaline, it's beautiful.

But still it isn't enough.

I am still picturing my love intertwined with Jesse, and I want to tear him away from that thief and pour all my love into him.

I wanted, once, to force Jaden to love me. I wondered how I could do it.

Then I remembered that it wouldn't be the same.

Jaden just didn't love me as anything more than a friend.

/

I cut my arms, I cut my legs. I deliberately make each individual cut small and not deep. These cuts are not to kill, they are just to give me some of that delicious, sickly sweet release.

When did I get like this?

I wonder why I am killing myself over my heart.

But it's more than that. I have nothing on this world, or any other in which my mortal self can exist.

Maybe it's got worse since my brother died …

It doesn't matter. Zane isn't here to stop me, I'm not leaving him behind. I don't think my parents will care so much. After all, I never matched up to my brother. I was always in his shadow.

I stepped out of his shadow and into Jaden's, and there I lost my heart to him.

I damn well want it back, but it doesn't work like that.

There is only one way to end my pain, my torture and suffering.

There is the end.

/

I don't believe in Heaven, as such. Not the way most people picture it, anyway, with the fluffy white clouds and the angels playing harps and everyone in white.

My version of Heaven is a simple school - Duel Academy or a likeliness - where I am together with Jaden, where he holds me like he holds Jesse in real life.

In my version of Heaven, I am with Jaden and he will forever love me. My brother will be there, strong again and proud of me.

I don't know what will happen to me when I die.

I don't want to know. What if it put me off?

I can't back out now.

And yet I feel my hands beginning to shake. Without me even realising that they were coming, there are tears pouring down my cheeks.

I sometimes cry when I cut - tears of physical pain are tears of joy, to me.

But these tears are different.

I don't want to dwell on them.

I have never been brave. Well, Jaden used to say that I was - but was it just a confidence boost for me?

I don't care.

This time, I am going to be brave. I am a coward at the same time - this is the easy way out - but I can't tell the difference.

Maybe I am crazy after all.

/

I do it quickly, because I am scared that I'll back out if I don't.

Most people think that two neat, horizontal cuts across their writs is the best way to commit suicide - cutting suicide, obviously.

They are wrong.

The best way to kill yourself by cutting your arm is to press the blade vertically against your wrist and then press down deep. Then you drag it up your arm, as far up as you like, splitting your flesh apart.

This is exactly what I do, holding the blade in my right hand and pressing it down into my left arm.

Pain explodes and I roll in its wonder.

My left arm isn't numb, it isn't shaking. It is going through something that I can not begin to describe, and it is wonderful. I am terrified and content at the same time.

I try to use my left hand to cut my right arm the same way, but it doesn't work the exact same way, because my left arm is in so much pain.

I manage to cut my right arm a bit, but the cut isn't quite so deep or so long, either.

I drop the blade. I can't hold it any more.

What the hell have I just done?

What you wanted to do.

My heart speaks to me, and its true knowledge is only the truth. I am ready, I really am.

Both my arms drop down into the water. The sting, the pain, the rush …

It is indescribable.

But my vision is going and I don't know what is happening any more.

My heart is going crazy with the blood loss. My brain, too. My whole body - save for my grateful heart - is screaming at me, telling me that I am going to bleed out.

I know this. Or at least, I used to.

Now, I don't know anything.

I can't think, I can't see.

So I do what is best.

I close my eyes.

And embrace the end.

Hazeru - That was hard to write. I felt so sorry for Syrus!

Hera - Hazeru actually went online to talk to one of her friends who used to self-harm to see why she was doing it.

Hazeru - My friend (who's name I will not mention) is relatively comfortable with talking about it. She gave me permission to use her experience in this story.

Hera - And for anyone who's interested, Hazeru's friend is fine now.

Hazeru - Anyway, hope the story didn't depress you too much.

Hera - Please R&R. No flames!


End file.
